Spoilers for the game and the anime.

I was late for the party for both the anime and the game, but as it all worked out in the end. Overall, I have a very positive experience of both.

My interest in the anime was actually piqued by having been spoiled on the ending, having avoided it due to the violence. I then proceeded to avoid it knowing that sadness awaited ahead. Recently though, my brother started playing Cyberpunk 2077 which made me curious how the anime made use of the shared setting.

Having experienced both, I have to say that the anime did a very good job in highlighting how dark the universe is, with the game allowing you to live it firsthand. Fortunately, I like in far better circumstances than those of the Cyberpunk universe, but that does make it difficult for me to empathize with the plights of the characters. No doubt the circumstances play a big part in driving the characters to the lives they lead. Morality aside, I do feel that its hard to feel bad about their fates considering the number of lives they’ve taken. In fact, I do feel that that’s what the anime was getting at, with the way it portrayed violence in general and the deaths of the characters without much ceremony.

In classic Studio Trigger fashion, the pacing of the anime was extremely fast, jumping from moment to moment, even blasting through emotional moments that might ordinary have taken entire episodes in minutes to seconds. Instead of the characters themselves, the characters served more to add to the world building. I think the anime was more about the way of life in the city, burning bright a the cost of time because death can come at any moment regardless. David’s mom was an example of the struggles of a parent to provide a better future for their children and the lengths they might go to when the odds are stacked against them. Maine was an example of the lengths someone would go to to be someone, throwing away his life to burn ever brighter. David is a youth who sees no future, choosing to play the cards he was dealt with to live for something he believed in more than his own life. With that in mind, the ending and each characters fates were actually pretty good.

If anything, Lucy might be the most tragic character because all she wanted was to live a modest life in a crazy world.

As a final note, the animation and music was really hype and could easily have carried the show by itself.